Communication & Technology – A must for an SME trader

Do you know that almost everyone looks up the internet in the following situations?

• Making a purchase decision
• Start a new business
• Look for a new supplier
• Business joint ventures
• Sourcing raw material
• Sourcing packaging material
• New buyers
• Comparison of products
• Product reviews
• The list goes on!

Since internet is easily accessible and more and more business is taking place online, it has become a necessity rather than an added advantage to make an online presence for your business.

But how easy or difficult is it to get online? It takes a lot of effort in making a neat website, update the content, put the right kind of images and keep the website updated all the time. Plus, because of the plethora of websites, you need to invest in SEO, SEM, social media marketing, etc.

Usually, since traders and other business people do not have the expertise to handle all of it, they go for one of the following two options:

1. Outsource the entire activity (which comes at a high price)
2. Do it in-house to save on cost (but the outcome is quite bad because of lack of knowledge and expertise)

This is a fix that many traders face. Add to this the fact that traders have not one, or two, or three products but the SKUs run in multiples of tens or hundreds. So it’s even more difficult to manage the operations.

Is there a way to avoid these problems and still get to the ultimate objective of having an online presence?

The answer is a product from bizporto.com, the bizTrader. bizTrader is a specifically designed product for SME traders that can not only manage inventory but upload all the product information online and maintain it, get you SEO and SEM traction, bring you on Google, Yahoo!, bing and other search engines and also maintain your online presence without you having to do anything. You can purchase the product at a very economical price for 12 months and stay relieved about your online marketing.

You need not put in any effort in managing it, all you have to do is prepare yourself to handle the business that will flow in after you begin using bizTrader.

bizTrader will change the way you do business. It will expand your market presence, increase your sales, give you a well defined space in the online market and benefit your business overall.

What are you waiting for?

Why you need to be on Google?

It’s true. Google can make or break your business. It’s safe to say that Google can be a sturdy back bone to your business and help you achieve success that you could not have imagined with the traditional marketing efforts.

Still not convinced why your small business needs to be on Google? The answer to that is simple and complicated. It is simple because Google is our answer to every question. Did you know that 62% of searchers never go on to the second page of the results and 90% do not go after page 3? This also means that one has to be on the first page of Google search results to be really able to make a possible mark into the target audience’s mind.

Here are a few reasons why your business needs to be in Google‘s good books:

1. Huge market

There are billions of searches happening on Google every day. Some of these searches might be pertaining to your business and if the search leads to your company website, you might get a small share of the big pie.

1. Local searches

If your target audience is city specific, then Google is even more effective and affordable. In case you are planning to advertise on Google for reaching out to potential customers in a specific city only, you might have to spend less and get a high ROI.

2. It’s complicated!

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to understand Google and make it work for them. If you can do it for your business first, you will be beating a lot of competition even before they think of getting there. Hence, start now and understand how you can get there. An easier and effective way of doing so is to enlist your business on a B2B product search engine such as bizporto.com.

Bizporto.com spends a lot of time and effort in making the website very search engine friendly. Once you are listed there, you will be on Google’s first page result when a potential buyer is searching for your category of products.

3. New business

It is estimated that for every 10 online searches, 7 searches happen on Google. Thus, if those 7 people cannot reach you website when looking for your products or services, you are allowing potential customers to go to your competitors. Don’t you think you should do something about it?

4. It’s worth it!

It might seem cumbersome and tedious and too high a cost, but investing time and money on Google pays off. Imagine being the top search result for your business on Google. Business will go exponentially and all the efforts will then seem worth it.

Simple Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

You have a small business and limited resources to market. Is that a problem? Absolutely not! Here are a few tips on how you can best utilize your time, effort and money on marketing your business:

• Add a personal touch: Be it a Facebook post or an email message, add a personal touch to it. Make your brand more human by giving its voice a touch of emotions and sentiments. Whatever you write or send out, even the content on your website, should have a personal touch and a human tone because It helps in connecting with your target audience faster!

• Use your existing network: Charity begins at home and so does marketing. Your family, friends, associates are the first target audience that you have to reach out to. Their support will help you get further. It’s like a ripple effect. If your network promotes you on their social network or circle of friends. Their network promotes it among their network. That’s how the word gets out! But the most important in this is how you sell your business idea to your own friends and family and make them believe in you and your product.

• Let the picture talk: A picture speaks a thousand words! It has been concluded that images can potentially attract more attention, capture mind share and engage people. Hence, use images more than text on Facebook, websites and elsewhere. It allows you to build a better positioning of the brand. Even product images should be good quality so that the user experience on your website and other online portals is enhanced.

• Contests: Small contests and giveaway are a great way to engage existing and potentials customers. Keep aside a monthly budget based on your will and utilize that money for gifts and giveaways. Such activities go a long way in increasing your number of loyal customers. And if they like what they win, they will come back to you and buy the product!

• Get together: If other similar players in your industry are also small and mid-sized, it would be a great idea to join hands for joint promotion. A combined marketing activity is a great way to increase awareness about the product segment and reduces cost of marketing. You can approach media for PR stories on all the brands together. It’s a win-win situation for all.

• Network: Networking helps increase your personal brand and generate credibility in the market. You are the brand ambassador for your product by default hence people judge your product and brand based on your personality. Hence, meet as many people as possible and create a good impression on them to be able to generate a good impression for your brand.

7 mantras of successful positioning

Positioning is about building a brand image and sustaining it. Brand experts often find themselves wondering as to what is the best way possible for positioning a brand that captures the mind space of the potential consumer. While every brand has its own course to follow to build an impactful positioning, there are some basic mantras that can help put the brand on the right track.

Here are some tips that one should keep in mind while setting out to implement a positioning strategy:

 

1.     Aim to be different

You have to position yourself something different from what already exists in the field. There are various products in the category, why should they choose you over the rest? If you can answer this question, you have a focus as to how you want to position yourself.

 

2.     Find your core competence

You will find that there is an advantage that you have which your competitor doesn’t. Figure out what it is – what are you able to do better than the competitor, and focus on that while positioning.

 

3.     What do you stand for

If you had to describe your brand in one word, what would it be? When you say ‘Tata’, you invariably think of trust. That’s what they stand for, what do you stand for? When you know what you stand for, you get more aligned with your positioning strategy.

 

4.     Competition monitor

You know what you stand for, but do you know what your competition stands for? Your positioning should be stronger than your competitor. But for that you need to overrule what your competitor already positions it to be. If Idea stands for social causes, Vodafone stands for best Value Added Services. Both have made a very strong positioning for themselves, and both have their own audience to appeal to.

 

5.     Customer’s Quest

Do you know what will make your customers happy? Do some firsthand research, talk to people and see what they are missing in the options available to them. When you know what your customers want, you can easily align your offering to their needs. And that will be your positioning guiding light.

 

6.     Stay Focused

In all your communication with the existing and potential customers, hammer only what your key positioning is. There should be a very clean alignment between all forms and medium of communication when it comes to the message you are giving out.

 

7.     Relevance is the key

Your positioning should be relevant to the product as well as to the customer. If there is no relevance, establish it. Again, look at Idea. It has made social causes relevant to the brand, thus generating a soft corner for itself in the minds of the people. Now everybody perceives Idea as a brand that is very sensitive to social issues. The positioning is relevant to the Indian consumer.

Use blogging to build your brand!

Did you know that there are specialized bloggers who write about particular subjects and are great influencers when it comes to guiding people through their purchase decisions? For example, there are tech bloggers who review every new gadget and publish it on their blogs. Those looking out to buy a new gadget, look up their blog and decide which one to choose. If these bloggers write a positive feedback on the product, the brand will be benefitted manifold.

Blogs have a far greater reach when it comes to search engine results. A blend of SEO techniques and relevant content can do wonders for a brand.

Consider the following ways in which brands can get themselves to be talked about by bloggers.

1.      Blogging Contests

A brand can announce a blogging contest and get bloggers to generate content in the online space for itself. The blogging contest can be given a well-defined theme, like the USP of the brand, etc. When a good prize is attached to the contest, bloggers would automatically be willing to participate and write about the brand in their blog.

For eg, recently, Dove held a Real Beauty blogging contest where in the bloggers were asked to write about what real beauty meant to them. It had huge cash prize attached to it. It created a lot of hype around the brand. These contests can be announced through various blogging directories or social networks for bloggers.

2.     Blogger Meets

A brand can announce a blogger meet where in the city based bloggers can come together and experience the brand first hand. This can include seeing the product, using it and learning about it. The bloggers can then go back and blog about their experience. This creates a valuable user generated content for the brand.

3.     Company’s Blogs

A brand can have its own blog that can not only talk about the brand itself but about other things related to it. For example, a cosmetics brand can write about various beauty problems, prevention and precaution, etc. Along with it, it can write about the brand products, their usage and how it can help solve those beauty problems.

4.     Celebrity Blogs

These days a lot of celebrities maintain their blogs. If a brand can get a celebrity to publish a post about its products and the brand experience, it will immediately generate a lot of publicity for the brand. It will be like having a celebrity endorsing the brand in the online space. Celebrity blogs are closely monitored and thus have high readership.

5.      Micro Blogging

Micro blogging platforms like Twitter can also help in creating a viral or an instant publicity for the brand. There can be contests especially for those using Twitter. With the use of hash tags and the brand’s Twitter handle, consumers can post a lot of content about the brand that can be read by their followers. This is a great way of engaging consumers as tweeting requires very less time. However, the shelf life of a tweet is very short.

Success Mantra: Retain customers than acquiring new ones!

Every small business must understand the importance of retaining the existing customers. Most small business owners get into aggressive customer acquisition and invest and all their marketing efforts, time and budgets to getting new customers and do not take any initiatives towards retaining the existing ones.
A repeat customer is good for any business but more so for a small business because of the following:

1. A repeat customer is as good as a new customer. Instead of going to the competitor, if the customer comes to you, it means you get a customer without any new investment.

2. Acquiring new customer is far more expensive than retaining an existing one.
Your competitor may take aggressive steps towards acquiring new customers and take away your customers too. Hence, once you have a customer, take extra steps in retaining him. On an average, it takes a small business at least 10 times more to acquire a new customer than retaining an existing one. Hence, the key to saving cost and growing a stable business is to retain the existing customers.

The following are the simple initiatives a small business can take towards retaining customers:

Be their support system: If you are a small business, you have a great opportunity to know your clients / customers personally. Give them individual attention and understand their specific needs, business requirements and feedback. If you make them feel important and valued, they will return the same gesture to you by sticking around.

Be responsive: the single most important key to retaining customers is to let them know that you hear what they have to say! Even a minor customer complaint or issue or feedback, if acknowledged immediately, helps the customer in developing the trust towards you and more importantly towards the brand.

Keep in touch: Make it a point to keep in touch with your customers / clients on a regular basis. If you don’t hear from them in a while, drop in an email asking if they are doing well. You can also send out periodical emails, newsletters, company/product updates on a regular basis to remind them of your presence.

Reward them: Reward your customers / clients for being committed to you. An annual discount, loyalty bonus, a public acknowledgement of your association with them, priority service, etc are all ways to give your customers more reasons to stay with you instead of wandering away.
Acquiring customers is important and a necessity for any business to grow but retaining the existing ones is critical for it to stabilize and have a higher return on investment.

LinkedIn for MSMEs

Is every social media network for your startup? Every small (and big) company can be found on Twitter and Facebook. While this could be a must-do for most companies today, little do they have clarity on how is it helping them and what objectives they are trying to fulfill by exploring social media networks.
A big company which has an established brand name might use Facebook and Twitter as a two-way communication channel with customers. Most companies can be reached through these networks by customers with complaints , suggestions and other messages. However, a startup or a small business may not be known by consumers and the utility of these networks may not be very high for them. In such a scenario, a professional social network like Linked In is a great place for entrepreneurs, traders, dealers and even other small business owners to learn about how to grow business, managerial aspects of business, various tools available for business operations and connect with others to build business partnerships, etc.
Linked In, if utilized in the right way, can prove to be very helpful for any small business owner. Here are a few insights about this wonderful social network exclusively for professionals:

1. Great with Search Engines: Most LinkedIn profiles turn up on the first page of Google when looking for keywords in your profile or your name. This is a good way to increase your visibility on the internet.

2. Linked In Company Pages: They are a great way to showcase your company’s offering, brand, product details, services offered, key specialties and what not! Thus, once a user reaches your Linked In, he can access complete company information in a neat and clean, standardized Linked In format. You can even upload images and give an enhanced user experience to the viewer.

3. Search for people you cannot otherwise find: Let’s say you need a contact person in a newspaper or a magazine or a big company or a smaller company that operates in the IT/ITeS sector or any other sector. All you need to do is search with the specified criteria on Linked In and you have the profiles of people based on their geographic location, employer, sector, etc. You can even see if they are connected to someone you are already connected with. You can ask your common connection to introduce you to a certain person over Linked in. All this within minutes and you know have the contact details of someone you did not know a while ago!

4. Ask for recommendations: You are starting a new business and nobody knows you in the industry. But your previous work experience counts a lot in adding to your credibility. You can ask your ex-colleagues, ex-box, college professors, ex-business partners or even your existing and past clients to give you a recommendation on Linked In. This recommendation can be a long paragraph about your work qualities, your attitude, your strengths, etc. This adds a lot of weight to your Linked In profile.

5. Display your past and present: All your awards and certificates, trainings and internships, work-ex and educational background can be displayed clearly on Linked In. This means that anybody who you want to business with can have a look at your professional profile and gain trust in your abilities even before meeting you in person.

6. Linked In Groups: Join relevant groups on Linked In for discussions on topics that interest you or to learn about something that you wish to. You can even ask specific questions or give answers to the ones that other post. This will increase your network and knowledge at the same time.

So what are you waiting for? A free Linked In account gives you many benefits and a paid one can be even more helpful as it has many options that can be utilized for the benefit of a small business. It’s really a small price to pay for the numerous features it provides.

It’s a good idea to provide a link to your Linked In profile in your email signature. But make sure your profile is regularly updated and is complete.

What can Facebook do for me?

Every business, big or small, is investing time and money on social media. Are you doing that too? Most companies get on to social media without thinking what it can do for you. Without clear understanding, the expectation from social media and the actual results sometimes lead to disappointment for companies, especially startups.
Social media should never be seen as a sales channel or one should never expect direct increase in sales due to social media. It should purely be look at as a brand building exercise that will add to your brand image and consumer engagement. It can also serve as a source of company information or industry insights.
Why Facebook cannot generate sales?
Research shows that a Facebook user likes 200 pages on an average. Let’s say one of the pages is your company page. In your understanding, the user is a ‘fan’ of your brand and everything you post on your page is keeping him in mind. However, the remaining 199 brands feel the same way about him. But if you ask that user, he probably doesn’t even remember all the pages that he has liked or if he knows the names of all the brands that he is a ‘fan’ of.
Also, everything that you post does not show on your fan’s newsfeed. So there’s a good chance that they may never even see what you are writing there. Another important thing to keep in mind is that not everyone who is a fan of your brand on Facebook is your target audience. The person liking your page may not be using your product/service at all. But here’s the catch – he is aware of your brand. And if you are posting interesting content on your page, he might engage with you in conversations or share your content. This is a slow step towards building your brand.
And this is what social media does the best. It builds your brand. It makes you well-known; it gives a platform for the general public to reach out to you.
A Facebook page can be used to:

• To share content about the industry
• To share content about the company
• To showcase the product / service
• To engage with the fans through interesting / humorous content
• To open an channel for interaction with the consumer

There are applications that you can install on your Facebook page to set up an online store that operates from the fan page. This tool can be used to generate sales but for that the brand will have to promote or advertise the Facebook store.
Thus, when you take the decision to invest on Facebook, understand what your objective is and plan the strategy accordingly. Knowing your social media objectives will help you in setting your expectations right.

Building Brand Accountability

A brand is considered more accountable towards the consumers if they know that the brand is involved in a social cause. This will encourage the consumers to make that extra effort in choosing your brand over its competitors. Organizations agree that they take up corporate social responsibility not because it’s the most ideal thing to do but because it strengthens their brand.

1. Well known brands
When a brand is well known already, all its initiatives are much more appreciated and well received. If Tata Motors implements a CSR activity, it will get talked about in the media and will add credibility to the brand even more. However, smaller brands should not get disappointed if their social initiatives are not coming out as effective as they expect them to be. These are stepping stones that are necessary.

2. Reduced Government Role
As more and more sectors are being privatized, the government’s socialist approach needs to be carried forward in the private sectors. This means that companies and brands need to support the government’s endeavor to provide welfare to the society – by way of employee benefits, more number of jobs, environmental initiatives, increased productivity, sustainable urbanization, etc. When a brand supports the government in such a way, it is bound to make a mark in the public eye and build a stronger name for itself.

3. Corporate Governance
Today more and more companies are paying attention to corporate governance which includes ethical practices, transparency of operations, etc. When an organization takes up social initiatives, it can show to the stakeholders, customers and the government how it is an ethical organization that devotes its resources in social causes. Something as simple as providing special maternity benefits also counts.

4. Employee Benefits
Just as charity begins at home, a company should first ensure that their employees are happy before they step out to bring a change. This means making comfortable working practices for employees, keeping their needs in consideration, can help the organization in building a strong internal brand. IBM India provides work from home facility to all its employees wherein they can choose to work from home whenever they want. This keeps the employees happy and reduces the attrition rate to a large extent.

5. Interest of the consumers
When a company initiative addresses an interest of the customer, it immediately becomes popular and the brand gains visibility in the customer’s eyes. For example, today more and more Indians want to go ‘Vegan’, essentially demanding products that are free of any animal ingredient or animal testing. Thus, a brand that offers products that are eco-friendly appeals to this audience and instantly makes a name for itself.

6. Partnerships & Associations
Organizations that have a social bent to them are preferred by partners and associates; only because they seem more trustworthy and credible. Also, brands want to associate with those brands that are already working for a social cause, so that the credibility passes on to them as well.

Word of Mouth Marketing – How to do it?

Word of Mouth has always existed, although marketers are now trying to make the best of it by planning it strategically so that it is more structured and result oriented. WoM Marketing is a great way of driving sales as they are a credible source of brand feedback.
Following are the ways in which businesses can instill a word of mouth marketing campaign and see it generate publicity for them.

1. Make Your Customers Happy
This is the first rule when it comes to word of mouth of marketing. Keep your customers happy, build relationships with them and let them know you are sensitive to their needs. Let them leave you feeling happy and they will always spread a good word about you. You can achieve this by excellent product quality, well groomed sales staff and a smooth after sales service. A happy customers can bring in so many more customers for the brand which, in itself, is a powerful marketing tool.

2. Keep Your Employees Happy
If you want a good word to be spread about you pay attention to your employees too. They are the ones who can drive the company ahead. Be receptive to their needs and preferences, make them a family and give them enough space and room to grow professionally & personally. A happy employee can be turned into a brand ambassador. Companies should realize this and make sure that every employee that they hire talks good about the company for its organizational practices and employee treatment.

3. Do Viral Marketing
Viral videos create a lot of buzz. Create messages in a concise format and let them circulate through social media, emails, etc. These videos should be attention seeking, interesting and amusing. Sometimes, viral videos are strategically made senseless, to grab attention. These have high sharing value and thus spread around like a ‘viral’. These videos/images should be small in size so that they can be easily circulated.

4. Have Blogging Contests
This is a fast growing trend today. Consumer engagement in the form of blogging is gaining momentum as this creates a lot of user generated content about the brand. There are certain ready platforms through which brands can engage bloggers for contests such as IndiBlogger.in, a network of Indian bloggers. Blogging contests create a lot of content about the brand and also get people talking about it.

5. Referral Programs
If you reward people for getting new customers, they will obviously endorse you to as many people as possible, to claim the reward. Announce a well-structured referral program and let the existing customers take charge of your marketing your brand. The larger the network, the more the WoM marketing.

6. Create Interesting Advertising Message
Advertising messages that are hard hitting, funny or just interesting get instant attention from customers. People not only talk about it but often share it with other too. Since every TVC is available on YouTube and every print as is available online, consumers can and will share it if they find it interesting. This essentially means that a third party is promoting the brand’s advertising message.